It was a warm sunny day on the outskirts of Ponyville. The kind of day on which Fluttershy enjoyed tending to her garden as she chattered with her animal friends, the day was quite and she had almost finished weeding her flowerbed. She gently set down her trowel and looked at the flowers with a small bit of pride. It had taken her months just to be able to remove weeds with out feeling horrible about herself; even she did replant the particularly sad looking ones into the space next to the flower bed.
And so it was on such beautiful, calm days, something had to go amiss.
A mass of pink fluff appeared in front of Fluttershy’s face as she turned around. The Pegasus let out a loud gasp. “Oh, Pinkie Pie you almost scared me to death,” Fluttershy said.
“Sorry Fluttershy, I was just done with my work at Sugar Cube Corner, and it’s nopony’s birthday for another six days, and Twilight had to work on an important new spell, and Rainbowdash was napping, and applejack was on a pie delivery, and rarity is in canterlot for the week for some fashion thing,” Pinkie Pie took what appeared to be a five-minute breath, “so I thought I’d come see what you were doing.”
“Well, I was about to go inside,” Fluttershy responded, “You can come in if you want.”
“Sure,” Pinkie said cheerily. She skipped behind the drifting Pegasus.
Somewhere in the Everfree forest, a tall man stood with a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. He had gone into the marshes of Fallen London two or three days ago to hunt for shipwrecked clay-men, and now appeared to be in a forest on the surface, complete with real sun and moon. He had been hiking for days, and in addition he had been attacked by wolves, vines, and very confused, aroused weasel, nothing a hardened individual like him couldn’t handle.
It was after hiking for so long that he stumbled upon a large cave mouth. He walked up to it, being the fearless hunter he was. He walked into the cave for a few feet before declaring it to dark to continue. If this were the way to home from the surface, there would most likely be tourists, immigrants, probably armed guards, defiantly armed tourists.
As he twirled to exit the cave, he was greeted by a peculiar, deep growl. He clutched his weapon with a white, knuckled grip. From deep within the cave, erupted a large lion like beast, with giant leathery wings, and a jointed tail tipped in a stinger. The man looked at it in silence for a second, taking the every terrifying feature of the beast. “Well then,” he stated, as calmly as he could as he pulled back the hammers on his rifle, “have a go at it.”
Pinkie Pie was busy rambling about her day, and Fluttershy was trying to pay polite attention, when Pinkie bust into a short seizure-like fit during which her eyes seemed to bounce around her head like marbles. Afterwards Pinkie Pie wore an expression of pure excitement; Fluttershy looked as though she was worried the sky might come down on her head. “OOO it’s the dozy I wonder what it’s gonna be this time,” Pinkie said ecstatically,”where’s it gonna come from. Do you think we need to go outside for this one again?”
“Now Pinkie,” Fluttershy said after trying unsuccessfully to force herself under her own coffee table, “maybe we shouldn’t rush into this. It could be dangerous.”
“Oh, do you think we should tell Twilight? I think she’d like something like this, and if it is dangerous Twilight could help.” Pinkie rambled. Fluttershy was worried, but she couldn’t let her friend walk into another potential hydra attack again.
“Okay,” Fluttershy said shakily.
“Are you ready yet,” Rainbow Dash whined, “How much could you really need to pack? We don’t even know what it is.”
“That’s just it,” Twilight said, agitated, “we don’t know what this is going to be, and if we get into any trouble Pinkie wouldn’t be able to fly out of it like the rest of us.”
“Um Twilight,” Rainbowdash said as Pinkie Pie burst inexplicably in and out of the windows of Twilights library performing what appeared to be an extraneous musical number to the delight of spike, “I think Pinkie can handle herself.”
“Still,” Twilight said, at the grand finale of the musical number, “it couldn’t hurt.”
After wandering around the forest for what felt like hours, the group had found nothing that could safely be called a dozy. “This is hopeless, what if it happens back in Ponyville while we’re out he-,” Rainbow Dash was abruptly cut off by a distant scream.
“This way!” Twilight shouted, pointing north-east.
The human had been locked in battle with his primal foe for an excruciatingly long amount of time, and had now been thrown onto his back. The manticore stood over him, ready to bring its massive jaws down on him. The human desperately reached for his weapon which had fallen only a little over an arms-length from him. Failing this he grabbed his hat, and smashed the oddly stone-like head piece on the beast’s face with all his might. Shards of the deafening hat lodged themselves into the monster’s head, and at the same time, over fifty primordial shrieks were released from the hat. This deafening scream bought the man enough time to reach the hunting knife in his boot. He jammed the knife into his adversary’s neck. He pulled himself from under its weight as fast as he could. As he was escaping being crushed to death, the beast got off one, final dying slash. The man felt a sharp pain in his left leg and felt warm blood spill from the back of his leg. “Damn you, infernal monster, my devils eat you children if I don’t get to them first!” The man shouted at the now dead beast. He fell to his knees and rolled onto his back as best he could. He almost sure he was dying. The feeling was alien to him as he had never tried dying before, and to be honest, did not wish to try dying. But die he must.
The group of ponies ran and flew as fast as they could to whatever being had been in such dire need of assistance. They came upon the most peculiar sight any of them had ever seen since discord’s release. A dead manticore with an eye gouged out, lying next to the injured corpse of a bizarre animal. The latter appeared to be short, shaved Minotaur with a crushed, deformed snout. “Oh sweet Celestia,” Fluttershy said under her breath. She looked on the brink of tears.
“Fluttershy,” said Pinkie whose Pinkie-sense had stopped mid convulsion, “are you gonna be okay.”
“I think we should bury them,” Fluttershy said as tears started to well up in her eyes.
“Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said, “did we bring any shovels?” Twilight looked up from the brutal scene. With all honesty should couldn’t have cared less about the manticore. The odd beast next to it was a different story, it appeared very similar to a minotaur, but was different enough that she knew it was not one. Twilight would have preferred to have had more time to document the creature’s appearance, and maybe even done an autopsy. She would have to settle for sending a letter about it to princess Celestia.
“No,” Twilight said after a silent moment, “Rainbow Dash and I should fly back and get some.” Without another word, Twilight removed her saddle bags and the two took flight and left Pinkie and a crying Fluttershy next to the slain manticore.